Oppressed, and well nigh borne down by the painful consciousness, that the principles and positions which it will be my duty to maintain, can derive no credit whatever from the reputation of the advocate, I have spared no pains in gathering around them whatever of authority and argument the most careful research and the most deliberate reflection could supply. I have sought instruction wherever I could find it; I have looked into the reported decisions of almost all the state courts, and of this court; I have examined and compared state legislation and federal; above all, I have consulted the constitution of the Union, and the history of its formation and adoption. I have done this, because I am well assured, that the issues, now presented to this court for solemn adjudication, reach to whatever is dear in constitutional liberty, and what is precious in political union. Not John Van Zandt alone—not numerous individuals only—but the States also, and the Nation itself, must be deeply affected by the decision to be pronounced in this case."
Then followed the technical and legal plea which is a most close and unanswerable legal argument, showing conclusively that under the words of the statute the defendant could not be held guilty.
After this, follows a clear and masterly argument on the unconstitutionality of the then existing fugitive slave law, of 1793. In this, Chase took with great skill, boldness, ingenuity and learning, the same course afterwards taken by Sumner in his great speech before Congress, on the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.
The conclusion is solemn and weighty—and in the light of recent events has even a prophetic power:
"Upon questions,—such as are some of those involved in this case,—which partake largely of a moral and political nature, the judgment, even of this Court, cannot be regarded as altogether final. The decision, to be made here, must, necessarily, be rejudged at the tribunal of public opinion—the opinion, not of the American People only, but of the Civilized World. At home, as is well known, a growing disaffection to the Constitution prevails, founded upon its supposed allowance and support of Human Slavery; abroad, the national character suffers under the same reproach. I most earnestly hope, and,—I trust it may not be deemed too serious to add,—I most earnestly pray, that the judgment of your honors in this case, may commend itself to the reason and conscience of Mankind; that it may rescue the Constitution from the undeserved opprobrium of lending its sanction to the idea that there may be property in men; that it may gather around that venerable charter of Republican Government the renewed affection and confidence of a generous People; and that it may win for American Institutions the warm admiration and profound homage of all, who, everywhere, love Liberty and revere Justice."
The question was decided as all such cases in those times invariably were decided.
The Judge never undertook even the form of answering the argument; never even adverted to it, but decided directly over it, with a composure worthy of a despotism. It was a decision only equalled by that of the most corrupt judges of the corrupt age of Charles II.
Honest Van Zandt was ruined, "scot and lot," by a fine so heavy that all he had in the world would not pay it, and he died broken-hearted; a solemn warning to all in his day, how they allowed themselves to practise Christian charity in a way disagreeable to the plantation despots.
As for Chase, he was undiscouraged by ill success, and shortly reaffirmed his argument and principles in the case of Driskull vs. Parish. He was at least educating the community; he was laying foundations of resistance on which walls and towers should by-and-by arise. Humanity and religion had already made the abolitionists numerically a large and active body in Ohio. They needed only a leader like Chase, of large organizing brain and solid force of combination, to shape them into a political party of great efficiency. To this end his efforts were henceforth directed. In 1841, he united in a call for an Anti-Slavery Convention in Columbus, and in this convention was organized the Liberty party of Ohio. In 1845 he projected a Southwestern Anti-Slavery Convention.
The ground taken was substantially that to which a bloody, weary experience has brought the whole nation now, to wit: "That whatever is worth preserving in republicanism can be maintained only by uncompromising war against an usurping slave-power, and that all who wish to save the nation must unite in using all constitutional measures for the extinction of slavery in their own States, and the reduction of it to constitutional limits in the United States.